Ed Sheeran is showing his fans a side of him that he usually keeps private and is detailing the many ways life can take a turn for the worse – sometimes at the most inconvenient of times. Those details are going to be reflected in a new four-part docuseries, which will be released through Disney+ on May 3, 2023.
The docuseries will be released just a few days before the release of his upcoming album – Subtract. It’ll be somewhat of a perfect timing, considering the docuseries follows the making of the album. He made the announcement in an Instagram post, detailing how his vision for the album and docuseries changed.
“Disney approached me to make a four-part documentary on the making of my next album Subtract. Initially the documentary was just that, a documentary on the formation of an album. But, as my life took a few twists and turns, the subject matter of the album changed, and so did the documentary,” he wrote.
Ed Sheeran previously shared a diary entry about his upcoming album, explaining how different it sounds from his past albums. Where he used to write music that everyone would enjoy, this album is a little more serious and explores some of the ‘tumultuous’ things that have happened to him over the past few years.
In the diary entry, he mentioned three things, in particular, that changed his outlook on life – his wife’s health complications while pregnant with their second daughter, the sudden loss of his best friend Jamal, and a recent copyright lawsuit that questioned his integrity as a singer, songwriter, and professional.
At the time, he described these events as if he was ‘drowning, head below the surface, looking up but not being able to break through for air.’ Over the span of a few months, he found himself scrapping everything he had recorded for the album and starting from scratch, with new music that reflected his life at that time.
“I wanted to provide context to the album as it touches on very personal things,” he wrote recently. “I knew if I made a documentary, I would want to put my trust in the hands of the director, so it wouldn’t be sculpted by me, and was actually an accurate reflection of who I am, even if it’s uncomfortable to watch.”
Ed Sheeran Gets Emotional in Trailer for New Docuseries
Along with his written announcement on Instagram, Ed Sheeran shared a trailer for the new docuseries, which is set to release just two days before his new album. The trailer gives fans a brief look at the overall tone and mood of the docuseries – which shows real emotions that many fans will be able to relate to.
The trailer starts out on a fairly positive note. It shows pictures of Ed Sheeran as a child and shares glimpses of him performing in front of screaming fans. He talks about how Jamal was one of the few people who believed in him, as well as his deep and never-ending love for his wife, Cherry Seaborn.
“Everything in my life got so much better when Cherry got into it. I got married, and I’m a dad who’s got two daughters,” he says in the trailer – but that’s when the trailer takes an emotional turn. It shows several clips of him crying and breaking down as he describes his wife’s health troubles and Jamal’s passing.
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“Life is unpredictable, plans can change really quickly,” he says towards the end of the trailer. For those that have followed Ed Sheeran, his docuseries and subsequent album are going to show a different side of him – a side that every human experiences in their lifetime, but a side he has kept private, until now.
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